Redneck Family

My newly acquired stepson is going to Atlanta with me tonight. My brother has a truck for sale that Steve wants to take a look at, possibly to buy. Steve fears that the Toyota may be a Bubba truck and wants to take a look. I think he really wants to go so he can see for himself what my side of the family is like. It’s a good weekend for him to meet the clan since the family is throwing a birthday bash for my grandmother (Nanny J) who is the 85 year-old matriarch of this socially elite group.

There are about 60 people in my extended family (give or take a few ex-in-laws that we may still be related to). The family is comprised of good ol’ Southern country folk that will expect you to eat a large portion of everything that’s put on the table regardless of whether or not you're hungry, but the ones you have to watch are the ones I call semi-rednecks. That means they still have most of their teeth but otherwise fit the criteria i.e.: drive big trucks, own a couple of yard dogs, use some form of tobacco, and are racially prejudiced. Some of them have taken the Global Positioning Systems out of their bass boats and installed them in their vehicles to help them locate the nearest Wal-mart and yard sales. The language spoken by the clan would give an English teacher grammatical nightmares. Then there’s my sister-in-law who is radioactive! We have to stay away from her cause she’s having her thyroid killed today. She’s been having hot flashes and my brother can’t handle it. She’s the same one who shot their bad-assed dog with a 12-gauge shotgun when it bit one of her boys. She loaded the dog's carcass on the pick up truck and launched it into her dad's chicken pit (a deep hole with a 100 pounds of Red-Devil lye at the bottom). She also raises goats. Need I say more? One ex-in-law who decided she couldn’t get all the demons out us, ran off with a religious cult back in the late 70’s. No one went looking for her.

I’m not trying to project a bad picture of my dysfunctional family. They really are nice folks. They simply don’t qualify for the cover of Family Circle Magazine except for my cousin who thinks she’s Martha Stewart. I’ll try to update you when I return from my trip. Hopefully, no one will fall into the lake while trying to feed my dad’s pet carp this time.

My uncle is not doing too well. I wonder how long someone can survive on a wing and a prayer?


SENT: July 10, 2001, 10:59 AM
SUBJECT: RE: Redneck Family

Ya'll’s real nice folk. I met up with a bunch of ‘em, and they’re right looksome!


SENT: July 11, 2001, 7:59 PM
SUBJECT: RE: Redneck Family

Ok, so the burning question in my mind is WHICH cousin thinks she's Martha Stewart? Inquiring minds want to know. After all, y'all are part of my dysfunctional family too!! :O)

Good luck to you, Steve, this should be an interesting experience for you. Enjoy your Bubba truck. I know where you can get a nice rack of antlers for the grill.

SENT: July 12, 2001 9:30 AM
SUBJECT: Redneck Family

Well, if you have to ask WHICH cousin………


SENT: July 13, 2001, 10:59 AM
SUBJECT: RE: Redneck Family

You think that is bad, well you should meet my extended family from Alabama. I went to my family reunion about two years ago, at my grandmother's urging, and could not believe this was my family!! My grandmother talked my mom into flying down for the weekend to attend the reunion. Let me just say that my immediate family members are Yankees. My dad is from New York City and we have lived in the North pretty much our entire life. Well, at the reunion there were people with no teeth, really big bubba trucks, overalls, and the strongest country (not southern) accent that you can image. My mom and I stuck out like a sore thumb. We just looked at each other in amazement and thought, “This is our family?!”

Tag Office

I completed my fifth visit to the tag office today. On the other occasions I tried to change the title on my car:

The clerk's office was closed.
The line was too long to wait during my lunch hour.
I learned that I had to have my car's emissions inspected first.
I learned that I was required to have the original copy of my divorce agreement to prove that I was actually allowed to register the vehicle in my name.

The guy at the information booth started waving to me by the 4th visit. He must have thought I worked there. Sixty-seven dollars and a pound of patience later, I got a tag with the letters E-V-Q. Sounds like a medication. Have you tried EVQ? It’s great for warts, farts and having to deal with the government. If you say EVQ several times real fast it sounds like a diesel engine at a traffic light. What is your tag number?

I put the tie-dye sheets on our bed when we got home from the tie-dye party. When I awoke this morning among the green and purple swirls, I had been dreaming that I was in the spin cycle in the washing machine.

Car Door

This happened in 1999 when my daughter was about fifteen or sixteen years old. I'm still driving that Camry!

While I was upstairs dealing with the puppy, which must not hear well since she doesn’t mind at all, My Daughter backed out of the garage without closing the rear passenger door. Ugh! Major damage to my car, but didn’t hurt the garage. I drove around town the next day with the door partly open. It was closed at the bottom enough to catch, but the top was warped so badly it left a gap. People blew their horns at me while sitting at red lights, and yelled to me that my back door was open, so I taped a note to it that read, “We know – teenage driving hazard.” Today it looked like rain so we tied it shut with an electrical cord, and used duct tape to close the gap. If there are two things I can’t live without, it would be WD-40 and duct tape. WD-40 if it’s stuck; duct tape if it’s flapping - keeps many marriages and households running smoothly.

I can’t really fuss at My Daughter too much about her accident. I backed out of the garage without raising the door a few years ago. We not only had car damage, but house damage too! Mentioning damage, Annie is growing fast and she is strong as an ox! I wish she would leave the blind dog alone. Indi can’t defend herself against such a goof ball as Annie.